A very Happy Birthday to Charlie Camarda PhD, who flew on STS-114, commanded by Eileen Collins!

This week in 1973 #NASA was days away from launching #Skylab .

America's first space station arrived in orbit in a severely compromised state.

11 days later Paul Weitz, Pete Conrad and Joe Kerwin chased down and repaired #Skylab , then lived and worked there for a full month.

#OTD 52 years ago, Charlie Duke, John Young and Ken Mattingly returned to Earth from Apollo 16 - the fifth #Moon landing.

Ten years later, Young and Mattingly would command #NASA 's new crewed spacecraft in orbit - Space Shuttle Columbia.

#OTD 52 years ago Apollo 16 had departed the #Moon and was halfway home, leaving behind a buckled, beat up Lunar Module.

During the return journey, Command Module Pilot Ken Mattingly exited the spacecraft for the second 'deep-space' EVA in history.

#NASA

#OTD 54 years ago Apollo 13 rounded the Moon's far side, setting an unbeaten record for human distance from the Earth.

The damaged spacecraft was on its way home, but time was critical. Mission Control instructed the crew to make a second burn and cut 10 hours off the trip
#NASA

Under the leadership of Chris Kraft, NASA's Flight Controllers were expected to be decisive, focused and scrupulously honest.

54 years ago these qualities helped save Apollo 13 from disaster.

#OTD in 2011, #NASA renamed the Mission Control Center in Houston in Kraft's honour.

54 years ago: in the aftermath of the explosion that crippled Apollo 13, Glynn Lunney began his shift at Mission Control as Flight Director.

The spacecraft was incapable of completing a lunar landing mission. Lunney's team devised a new plan that could return the crew to Earth.

54 years ago, Apollo 13 was on the way to the #Moon , and 200,000 miles from home.

The crew followed a simple maintenance request from Mission Control: stir the cryo tanks. Ninety five seconds later, a catastrophic sequence of events rippled through the spacecraft.

54 years ago #OTD : The crew of Apollo 13 make a TV broadcast minutes before the accident that will come to define the mission.
The footage is watched by flight director Gene Kranz' team in Mission Control: they will make the first moves to save the lives on board the spacecraft.

ISS/NASA image of Moon shadow ...

#OTD sixty years ago, #NASA launched Gemini 1: the first flight of the Gemini programme.

The Gemini astronauts would build the foundations of human activity in space - staying longer and doing more work in orbit than ever before.

April 6, 1970
The prime crew of Apollo 13 pose for a crew portrait five days before launch. Unbeknownst to them, they have been exposed to measles through backup LMP Charlie Duke.

#NASA now faces a tough decision - delay the mission or reshuffle the crew at the last minute.

65 years ago, #NASA selected its first astronaut training group after a three-month screening process.

Astronauts Carpenter, Cooper, Glenn, Grissom, Schirra, Shepard and Slayton would come to be known as the #MercurySeven - a new breed of national heroes.

March 24, 1979
45 years ago, Space Shuttle Columbia arrived at #NASA 's Kennedy Space Center for the first time - attached to the back of a Boeing 747.

Pictured flying alongside in a T-38 is legendary Chief Astronaut Deke Slayton.